


He Can't See You

by pointyshades



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I'm Sorry I'm a Terrible Person Who Likes Sadness, M/M, Sherlock is sad, Sort of One-Sided Johnlock Feelings, Unfulfilled Feelings, that's basically it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pointyshades/pseuds/pointyshades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of moments in which Sherlock Holmes realizes that he is lonely. And later, a moment when he realizes he is alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Can't See You

_You look sad when you think he can't see you._

Molly told me this carefully, as though her words would hurt me. (Ridiculous notion.)

Words cannot hurt me. Nothing can hurt me. I am known to be invincible. (Another ridiculous notion. Invincibility is implausible. I am simply good at what I do.)

I look around the lab. It is sterile, white. Stainless steel glints under the harsh fluorescents. When Molly superimposed her sentiment onto me, I was here on a case. Kidnapping. Look at the alkalines of the soil, under the microscope, divide the particulates and therefore locate the lost children. Now it is nearly eight in the morning and it feels as though it has been years since the kidnapped children were found. (It hasn't, of course. One day, seventeen hours, forty-nine minutes.) I am here on a different case now. The final problem. Moriarty is so fond of calling it that.

You're asleep. Your head rests upon your folded arms, your face pressing into the fabric of one of those atrocious jumpers you seem to adore. It will leave a mark on your skin, when you awaken. (You will wake in seven minutes, when you receive a phone call. This phone call will tell you Mrs Hudson is dying. You will leave me.)

If I believed in fate, perhaps I would think the meeting on the roof of St Barts was a product of that agency. No matter which way I turned, how I twisted in Moriarty's web, slicing through the strands of his spidery creation, I would always end up here. Early morning, with you asleep at the table and me pondering death. In less than eight hours, you will be mourning me. The wheels have always been turning, bringing us to this point. No avoidal. You, me, an empty lab and a phone that will ring very soon. Five minutes, now. This was always going to happen.

(But I do not believe in fate. I believe in facts. I can read your worry in the creases of your jumper and the way your hair is combed. Your finger twitches as you sleep and I know that you are close to waking. If your phone did not go off, you would open your eyes in approximately eleven minutes.)

Such deductions are irrelevant. I already know everything about John Watson. All that is left to discover is how you will react to my death. I conjecture that you will be upset. (Of course you will. That is how your mind works.) It is an outcome that cannot be avoided, your injured emotions. But when I return, and I will, you will be there. For now I watch you sleep as if I am memorizing your very being. After this, it will be a very long time until I see you again. (Perhaps a more accurate statement: it will be a long time until we see each other again. Undoubtedly, I will see you. You will not see me.) Your hair takes on a different texture under these lights than it does in the flat. I want to conduct an experiment on that. I want to do anything, think about anything other than the rooftop meeting that awaits me.

My mind drifts back to Molly's words, over and over again. It's a weak concept, based on emotions and nothing more. Molly projects her memories of her father onto me. (Stupid.) That's all.

Remember: sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side. I am not losing. I have already won. Although my plans are still up in the air, balance of probability has already tilted the scales towards one option. Moriarty will want me to kill myself. I will pretend to oblige. I will survive; you will survive, John. This is a victory. (I am not losing.)

Tap my fingers on the counter. Your phone will ring any second, now. There is a sinking feeling in my stomach that I am unfamiliar with. An annoyance that must be repressed. I am not losing.

(Losing you, perhaps. But only for a couple of years. Surely that does not warrant sentiment?)

I look over at you again. Unknowing. Sleeping, quietly. I want to reach out and wake you, explain everything. (I'm not dying, John. I will be back. Trust me.)

Your phone rings.

 

\---

 

Rough pavement. I run, coat flaring behind me. It's dark and the streetlight is not functioning. Quick glance up at it. (It was blown out three, four years ago in a storm. Never fixed.) Streetlamps don't matter. Look away again. My shoes pound against the ground in time with the pounding of my heart. Adrenaline. (Great motivator.) Look left, right.

There.

"John, duck!" I shoot out an arm and grab you by the shoulder. Drag you down. A gun cracks and a bullet flies invisibly over our heads.

"God, Sherlock!"

"He's by the window!"

You struggle to your feet again, whip out your own gun. Eyes flicker, questing for a target. I open my mouth to direct you again, but you see him, and fire.

Colossal noise. (Why do guns have to be so loud?) Sound of glass shattering. You missed. I calculate your trajectory, your target's evasive movement. He should be right -

There -

You fire again. Your target crumples; I watch the way he hits the ground.

"Christ. Who did I just shoot?" A brief reminder, then, that I brought you on this chase without pausing to elaborate the situation. (You came anyway, at a moment's notice. Good John. Loyal John.) My ears are ringing in the sudden silence after the gunshots. You pick your way across the broken glass that litters the ground, to the man you have just shot. (At my command.) Your right hand is balled into a fist at your side, so you're afraid that he's dead. A reasonable concern, if you didn't observe the way he collapsed. No dead man puts his hands out to break his fall.

Your left hand still holds the gun.

"Alex Northton," I explain, stepping smartly over glass shards. "The killer of Eliza Jane Weedley and six other women." I look down at the prone figure. "And, coincidentally, a man with a bullet in his right calf. Good shot, John."

You have the grace to look uncomfortable. Of course I can tell, by the angle of the bullet's entry, that you weren't aiming for the man's calf. It was probably a body shot; it's dark, and you were worried more about our survival than his. Still, probably a good thing you didn't kill him. Scotland Yard will appreciate one less body, and one more captured criminal.

"I wasn't exactly aiming for his calf," you start to explain. (Catching up with my deductions at last. I've already considered what you're going to say.) I shoot you a look, and you close your mouth. The man on the pavement stirs and I plant a foot on his wounded leg. (Will have to wash blood off the sole of my shoe.) Moments pass, and the silence of the night is gradually invaded by police sirens. Of course, gunshots so close to the Yard would not go unnoticed. Alex Northton will spend a day in hospital, and then a long time in a lonely prison cell.

I look at you. Your face has more lines than it used to. Anxiety? Time creeps up on us all. (Your hair - is it a touch more silver? Or is it the moonlight? Can't tell at a glance; unusual.)

You glance in my direction, catch me staring. A smile tugs up one corner of your mouth. (Relaxed. Just shot a man, but relaxed. Only you, John Watson.)

"Checking to make sure I haven't started growing another moustache?" you quip. Dry humor. Just like old times. Have you forgiven me so quickly? Surprising, after your unexpected hostility upon my return. Wasn't expecting your anger. Wasn't expecting your _fiancée._ (Why not? People get married. It's what they do.) Tonight is the first real case we've had together since I came back. (The bomb under Parliament doesn't count; that was semi-unwillingly.) It's good. You, running through the night, following me unerringly. You, shooting a man simply because I said so.

Do you trust me again?

I've been silent too long. You're still watching me, but the smile has faded from your face. Your eyebrows rise slightly, questioningly. Concern?

"I don't need to check. No one in their right mind would regrow a moustache after the amount of disapproval yours received." I point out.

You roll your eyes. "Yes, yes, and you never cease to remind me of that." You take a step closer to me and look down at the man on the ground. Our shoulders brush. I feel a curious surge of warmth.

"He should be alright," you say. You look back up at me, and our eyes meet. "Bullet's lodged in his leg - he's not losing much blood through the entry wound. The police will be here in a minute, and they'll have an ambulance." Our stares lock together. Faces, not that far apart. How long has it been since I've stood this close to you, John Watson? (Too long.)

"Dinner?" I ask, smiling.

You freeze.

Have I said something wrong? (Do you not trust me after all? Am I on probation? Am I too dangerous to have dinner with?)

"I, uh. I better get back," you say. You look down and it's as if you notice the gun in your hand for the first time. You stick it in the back of your waistband. (A practiced motion.) "Mary will be waiting for me, and. You know. It's late." You can't meet my gaze - implies guilt, for running off like this. (Then why are you doing it?)

"Sorry, Sherlock."

I clear my throat. "No, fine, it's fine. Give Mary my regards."

(It's a good thing you can't see through fake smiles like I can.)

You leave me with the bleeding criminal. I stand silently in the dark for three minutes before the police arrive.

 

\---

 

The morgue glistens in the unnatural lighting. Someone has opened a window and let the twilight in. All the corpses are waking up, rubbing purple hands over mangled faces. Very irresponsible, to let the corpses walk around. They're going to hurt themselves, and then where will we be?

Molly is standing before me. Her lab coat shifts from blue to grey as I watch; it's dizzying. I can't deduce anything about her wardrobe from it. (Is she the one who woke the corpses?) I open my mouth to ask, but no words come out. Molly's lips are shaped into a sympathetic frown.

 _Sherlock,_ she says. She takes a step closer to me, just as the corpses do. Someone should take care of them, shouldn't they? I can't imagine this is sanitary. _Sherlock, where's John? He's supposed to be here, isn't he? Remember?_ Suddenly, I do remember. You're the one who can put the corpses back to sleep. That way all the evidence will be safe, and I can walk from cot to cot and solve murders. (Where are you, John?) I look around the morgue. In the crowd of decaying figures stands a man with his back to me. (John?) My heart leaps in my chest; I have to take deep breaths, calm it down. Wouldn't want any of my organs to jump out of my body just now. The corpses would probably eat me.

Slowly, you turn around. Your hair's gone all grey - I feel a pang of sorrow. Poor John, what's happened to your beautiful blond head?

(Anyway, that doesn't matter. Put the corpses back to sleep, John. One of them's just touched me on the shoulder and I don't want to catch a disease.)

 _Sorry, Sherlock._ I blink, uncomprehending. You're standing right in front of me now, but instead of quieting the dead, you're making apologies. You put your hand on my shoulder, just where the dead man touched me. (Don't do that, you'll get sick.) Your mouth moves again: _I've got to get back to Mary, Sherlock. You understand. I'm very sorry._

But the corpses -

 _I'm really sorry, I am._ You remove the warmth of your hand from my shoulder; underneath, my skin's begun to turn grey. Did you do that? You frown at me, as if I've done something wrong. _Mary's more important to me than you, now,_ you say. I know that, John. I know that. I keep knowing it as you make your way out of the morgue, through the crowd of deceased. The dead are all banging their shins on things now, and slapping each other; I'll never be able to decipher the evidence. All these murders, lost in the twilight.

Molly's still here. I turn to face her, to ask her to bring you back. The words still fail to emerge from my throat.

 _He can't see you now, Sherlock,_ Molly says, patting me on the arm. (My whole shoulder's rotting now. I knew I shouldn't have let that dead man touch me. I'm going to become a corpse, like all the others, and I'll have to live in the morgue and never see you again.) _It's okay to look sa_ _d. He can't see you._

I reach up to touch my face, and my cheek is wet with tears. (Sentiment: the first sign of death. I'm going to miss your wedding, John.) My arm is rotting away from my shoulder, now, and no matter how hard I try to keep it on, it just keeps falling off...

When I wake up, I've kicked all the sheets off the bed. It's only later I find out that I've clawed up my shoulder, trying to keep my arm on.

 

\---

 

"You cannot hole up in Baker Street and refuse to let anyone in, Sherlock. That's childish." Mycroft folds one leg over the other and leans back. His long, flexible fingers rest lightly on the arm of the chair. (Your chair, not his.) One eyebrow crooks itself slightly in a studied expression. I want to punch the _concerned older brother_ look off his face.

"I'm not hiding."

"What do you call this?" One hand waves lazily at the rest of the flat. Yes, I know, dust has accumulated. On the doorframe, as well as everywhere else. Mycroft undoubtedly saw it on his way in and deduced my self-imposed isolation. But it's not like that. I'm not _sulking._

When I don't respond, Mycroft takes it as a green light to continue his half of the conversation. "You haven't let in any clients for two weeks. Your landlady testifies that you haven't even let her into the flat for the past six days. I can tell; there's an awful stench up here." His lip curls in distaste.

I don't have a suitable retort. I take my revenge by silently deducing that Mycroft's put on another two pounds since we last met.

"Please, Sherlock. If you could drag your head down out of the clouds for a moment, maybe we could talk about how you're behaving as if you're five years old and your favorite toy has been taken away."

(Ridiculous. When I was five, Mycroft took my magnifying glass and melted it with a blowtorch. I didn't react anything like what I'm doing now. I kicked him in the shin and told everybody about the time he forgot his trousers and went to school in just his pants.)

He's still waiting for a response.

Damn him.

"I'm not sulking, Mycroft, and I haven't lost any toys, as you put it." I roll my eyes and lounge further back in my chair. Just to spite Mycroft, I prop one foot up on the table, precariously close to his cup of tea. He can't prevent his slight scowl. "Everyone's just so boring lately. No good serial murders in a while. It's all affairs, and lost rings, and...weddings."

Mycroft, damn him again, only smiles. That bland and yet insulting smile: god, he must practice it in the mirror. "Weddings, yes. How was John's? I heard there was a near-murder. What a coincidence."

"Yes, well, I solved it," I mutter.

"Good. Ease John's way into married life. How very thoughtful of you, brother dear."

(Married life. Deathwatch beatle.)

"Still," Mycroft sighs, "He's gone and left you alone now, hasn't he? And so you lock up the flat and retreat to your sofa. Like I was saying: childish."

(Childish. You're going to have a child, John. Are you happy about that? I think children are tedious.)

"Are you even listening to me?"

"No," I respond automatically, and kick my other foot up onto the table. Mycroft's teacup tips over. He pulls his legs back barely in time to avoid getting splashed.

"Sherlock, for god's sake." Well, there's a tone that I haven't heard in a while. A bite in his words. I afford him minimal attention. "He has _moved on._ You need to do the same."

(Have you moved on? You said you wouldn't.)

"It's almost as if you were in love with him," Mycroft tosses back over his shoulder as he leaves the room. I hear the tap of his umbrella on the stairs. Preposterous, accusing me of sentiment. He of all people would know that I am not prone to such pathetic displays. I pick up my brother's teacup and focus on deducing whether he's been to the dentist lately.

Foolish, sentiment.

(Having fun with Mary, John?)

I'll unlock the flat tomorrow.

 

\---

 

It's cold in the flat.

You haven't visited in four months. Not since Magnussen. Mycroft has me on lockdown, I'm not allowed outside the flat. I suppose that's what happens when you kill someone.

I saw it in your eyes, last time we met. When the plane came back down, saving me from exile. You smiled, but you didn't come talk to me. Mary grabbed your arm and held it tight. Reminding you that you live a life of domesticity, now? Either way, your feet only shuffled on the tarmac. You didn't come back to me, John. This last time, you didn't come back.

Is it because I shot Magnussen? (That can't be it. You've killed plenty of people.)

In any case, your married life is safe now. I can't leave the flat to find you. You don't come here to see me. It's been an awful four months, working cases from inside a 700 square foot establishment. Once, I almost jumped out the window just to get away. Mycroft called while I was considering it and told me that if I jumped, he'd have me shot. (I still considered it.)

The boiler must be broken again; I'm shivering in my dressing gown. (You'd go downstairs and ask Mrs Hudson if there was anything you could do to help. I sit on the sofa and mumble profanities.) There's a mirror on the wall that I knocked with my elbow the other day. Crooked now. I haven't bothered to fix it. It hangs at just the right angle for me to watch myself, sitting on the sofa. Marvelous. What would we do without mirrors? I'm so bored that I've been staring into the warped glass for a good fifteen minutes, thinking about past cases. (You keep coming to mind.)

I think my mind's been poisoned. I think someone broke into the locked rooms of my mind palace and placed a time bomb, and now it's gone off. I think that bomb contained sentiment. I think that person was you, John Watson. (Did you do it on purpose?)

I've got a lot of time to think, now. I think about you. I wonder if you ever could have cared about me beyond the way that you did.

If I hadn't jumped off that building, would things have been different? (You wouldn't have met Mary, maybe.)

I remember the day before I jumped. (Was it two days? My mind palace is failing; emotions clog all the rooms.) That was when we sat in the lab, me with my microscope, and looked for missing children. Molly stood next to me and spoke carefully, afraid her words would hurt me.

_You look sad when you think he can't see you._

It's been four months, three days, seventeen hours since you saw me last.

I face myself in the mirror. My reflection looks sad.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated! This is my first published work on this site, so please, go easy on me.  
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
